Kanye West will definitely go down in history for having the most controversial rants. His latest diatribe took place on April 9, during his first show of 2016 in Manila, Philippines.
The rant was super meta, as it was about one of his most famous rants of all time: the source of the now iconic "Imma let you finish" meme — his 2009 MTV Video Music Awards scuffle with Taylor Swift.
During the show on Saturday, West revisited his decision to interrupt Swift during her acceptance speech for Music Video of the Year back in 2009, and revealed that he struggled with writer's block after the incident. He called the moment "the beginning of the end of his life" because Lady Gaga cancelled their tour — ironically titled Fame Kills — immediately following West's immature outburst.
An audience member recorded West talking about the incident, wearing what looks like all of his The Life of Pablo merchandise. Here's the transcript in full:
"What I wanted you to know the whole time — you know, in the spirit of Nina Simone, in the spirit of real artists — this is the song that broke the writer’s block for me because it’s something I wanted to say so bad that they told me I couldn’t say.
"That night when I went onstage was the beginning of the end of my life. Lady Gaga cancelled the tour the next day. You know what night I’m talking about — when I just said what everybody else was thinking. So if I get in trouble for saying the truth, what's being said the rest of the time?
"And I had to fight every day of my life when the whole world turned against me for saying out loud what everyone else felt, but that's the job of an artist, of a true artist: not to be controlled by their finances, not to be controlled by perception, but only to be controlled by their truth — what you see, what you feel — and say what you fucking feel.
"You don’t know, it’s really overwhelming for me to perform this song for the first time and for y'all to react to it in that way. That I fought to make that the first single off of 'Pablo.' If you don’t mind I’d like to do this song one more time, can I do it one more time?"
The song that was twice performed was "Famous," off of TLOP. One of the first lyrics in the song went viral when the album first dropped since they are about Swift, and how West feels responsible for her rise to the top.
I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that bitch famous. I made that bitch famous.
The lyrics were criticized for being offensive and misogynistic, because, well, they are. And although West claims to have had Swift's permission to use her name in the song, her camp adamantly says otherwise.
With West gearing up for a world tour for his recently crowned #1 album, we can only expect many, many more rants. Sounds like the old Kanye is back, for better or for worse.
See the rant below.